“As citizens of the world, the existential and emotional toll of the last few years has been immense, a superstorm of sociopolitical strife and social media-induced anxiety. Into this tempest wades acclaimed author Patrick Nathan, whose call to arms asks one of the most important questions of our time: ‘Who gets to police how we see ourselves and others?’ It is up to us, this blazing work of nonfiction suggests, to save ourselves—with discernment, with rage, with empathy, with art.”
—Michelle Hart, Oprah Daily
Art, Fascism, and the Right to Resist
Who gets to control the media we consume? Can we intervene, or at least mitigate the influence of constant content? Mixing personal anecdotes with historical and political criticism, Image Control explores art, social media, photography, and other visual mediums to understand how our culture and our actions are manipulated, all the while building toward the idea that if fascism emerges as aesthetics, then so too can anti-fascism. Learning how to ethically engage with the world around us is the first line of defense we have against the forces threatening to tear that world apart.
“A lively investigation of the numerous connections among fascism, imagery, media, and politics . . . [Nathan’s] originality of thought drives this impressive nonfiction debut . . . [He] delivers deep thinking and clever turns of phrase in equally abundant amounts, making his history lesson and philosophical discussion a page-turning good time . . . An unexpectedly entertaining scholarly warning about fascism’s spread through imagery.”
“Nathan pierces the axis of images and words and finds, under the surface, a tyranny of images that are manipulated — and that, in turn, manipulate unwitting consumers. In spite of the serious implications of its arguments, the book is timely, glib, and wry . . . a whip-smart text — the kind of brain candy that never loses its sweet tanginess”
“Nathan’s unique work of analysis diagnoses a problem underlying many of our online interactions, one with important implications for both personal relationships and national politics.”
“Nathan exposes the authoritarian underpinnings of presumed neutrality in art, photographic documentation, and memorials to underscore the importance of language as a tool for anti-fascist analysis. Elegantly weaving between art and literary criticism, historical and cultural commentary, Nathan offers a hybrid practice of resistance blending philosophical investigation with an indictment of the ways consumerism, gentrification, and assimilation undermine the possibilities for challenging tyranny. With fierce wit and uncommon scrutiny, Nathan urges us to refuse the flattening lure of image-as-truth in order to pursue an incisive autonomy.”
“... brilliant in so many ways, but perhaps the most valuable insight I encountered in Nathan’s superbly written collection of essays is the knowledge that humans might begin to take control over the images they consume. We do not have to live in vacuums; we do not have to flatten the individual. Instead, we have the power to resist, to contextualize, to place other human beings within time and narrative. Image Control is a gift to those in search of enlightenment within this frightening hall of mirrors we call social media.”
“Eloquent, angry, smart, and wildly erudite, Patrick Nathan sits down in the middle of the intersection where American loneliness, capitalism, fascism, the tyranny of the image, and the commodification of absolutely everything all meet and crash together into the disaster that we call home. Image Control is a call to arms, an urgent plea for a radically queered compassion, one that knows how — and who — to fight.”